Egypt's Morsi Partially Annuls Decree Expanding His Powers

ENLARGE

An Egyptian army soldier rests on his tank behind the gates of the presidential palace in Cairo on Saturday.
Associated Press

By

Matt Bradley

Updated Dec. 8, 2012 7:45 p.m. ET

CAIRO -- Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi withdrew part of a controversial declaration that awarded him near absolute power, a limited concession to protesters whose two-week-long campaign had gridlocked Egyptian politics.

But the new declaration preserves next Saturday as the date of a referendum on a divisive proposed constitution, skirting a key demand of Mr. Morsi's opponents.

Selim Al Awa, a former presidential candidate and one of the lead negotiators between Mr. Morsi and his opponents, announced the new declaration in a news conference just past midnight on Sunday morning.

Earlier

It still seemed unlikely that Mr. Morsi's partial climbdown would satisfy liberal-leaning politicians.

Their opposition to Mr. Morsi and his Nov. 22 declaration set off the worst constitutional crisis to afflict Egyptian politics in decades.

But it may ease tensions on the restive streets of Egypt's capital, where fighting between secularists and Islamists killed six people in the past week.

Sunday morning's announcement preserves articles in Mr. Morsi's original declaration that replaced the Mubarak-appointed public prosecutors and allowed courts to retry former regime officials if new evidence becomes available. Many Egyptians blamed the public prosecutor for the light sentences handed down to the country's ousted leaders and police officers accused of corruption and killing protesters.

Mr. Morsi's new declaration maintains the accelerated timeline for adopting Egypt's new constitution, defying his opponents' complaints that Saturday's referendum would railroad through an Islamist-tinged constitution.

The concession marks only a mild sacrifice for Mr. Morsi, say the president's mostly liberal critics, because the power-expanding decree had already prevented Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court from dissolving the constitutional drafting committee.

Mr. Morsi and his Islamist allies have said the court is stocked with former regime loyalists inimical to Egypt's democratic reforms.

The court had been expected to rule on the legitimacy of the constitutional drafting committee last Sunday, but delayed the decision after Islamist protesters blocked the court's entryway.

With the constitution drafted and its referendum date set, the founding document's passage is now nearly certain, said some secular-minded activists.

"It was expected all along that he would do that at the last minute," said Bassem Sabry, a secular-leaning blogger and political analyst, of Mr. Morsi's decision. "After he got everything he wanted from the decree, he rescinded the decree and got some political points."

But by withdrawing the most offensive articles in his Nov. 22 constitutional declaration, Mr. Morsi still exposes the 236-article document to the court's judgment.

The courts now hold the reins of the unfolding crisis. If Egypt's SCC convenes and decides to block the new constitution and its referendum, it could send Egypt reeling once again toward fresh instability.

In what could amount to an additional concession, Mr. Awa said Mr. Morsi would consider the opposition's suggestions for the proposed constitution. Mr. Awa offered few details on how much sway the opposition would have on the document, nor whether the president would reconvene the constitutional assembly to consider such changes.

Mr. Morsi's constitutional declaration arrogated his authority over the judiciary, preventing them from challenging his decisions or dissolving the constitutional assembly. It also awarded the president vague powers to "take the necessary actions and measures to protect the country and the goals of the revolution."

The presidential policy shift came hours after Mr. Morsi's leading critics refused to attend a day-long reconciliation meeting that Mr. Morsi had called for Saturday.

The liberal leaders, which included several former secular-leaning presidential candidates, have insisted that dialogue was impossible until the president lifts a constitutional declaration that granted him almost unlimited political power.

The timing of Mr. Morsi's decision could also reveal some pressure from Egypt's military, which tentatively waded into the conflict for the first time on Saturday.

In a televised statement on Saturday afternoon, an unnamed military official admonished Mr. Morsi's opponents for ignoring the president's calls for dialogue and made ominous references to the military's "responsibility for maintaining the supreme interests of the nation."

"Dialogue is the best and sole way to reach consensus that achieves the interests of the nation and the citizens," the spokesman said. "Anything other than that puts us in a dark tunnel with drastic consequences, which is something that we will not allow."

Egypt's military, which for two years had been a constant presence in the country's political scene, has been largely absent from the two-week conflict.

Their creeping re-entry to the political field come a day after Mr. Morsi showed signs of ceding to some of its opponents' demands after tens of thousands of activists thronged around the presidential palace on Friday in a deepening of the country's constitutional crisis.

Opponents of Mr. Morsi—who have rallied angrily after the president gave himself extraordinary powers in a declaration late last month and placed himself above judiciary oversight—had demanded, among other things, that he defer plans to hold a Dec. 15 referendum on Egypt's freshly drafted constitution. These opponents say the document is an Islamist-tinged charter drafted by a body that was unfairly stacked with Morsi allies.

Hemmed in by ultra-conservative supporters on one side and secularist revolutionary activists and Egypt's Christian minority on the other, Mr. Morsi is navigating a narrow political channel, said Khaled Fahmy, a political analyst and history professor at the American University in Cairo.

He said the compromises like those offered Friday would make the president appear weak to his power base while failing to win over his opposition. "Something much more substantial needs to be done. The Brotherhood needs to realize that they cannot rule the country alone. They need partners," said Mr. Fahmy.

Late Thursday evening, Mr. Morsi had appeared on television with an offer to meet with his opponents about withdrawing the article from last month's declaration that gave him extraordinary powers.

The offer, which came just hours after tanks were deployed to disperse protesters from around the presidential palace, appeared to have done more to inflame anger against the president than to soothe it, according to some activists.

Secular-leaning political leaders rejected the offer earlier Friday. Tens of thousands of Morsi opponents descended on the presidential palace in Cairo in protest.

The crowds in front of the palace had thinned to only a few hundred by Saturday afternoon, with protesters and soldiers chatting amicably on sidewalks and sipping tea together at road-side stalls.

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